Little Vulpix, Larvitar, and Ralts stood on one side.
Castform, Beautifly, Gallade, and Mismagius stood on the other.
Rotom Pokédex floated in front of Terrance's shoulder, watching them alongside him.
"Next, according to the training plan just now, let's begin the combat practice."
After a thirty-minute rest, Terrance first grouped Ralts and Larvitar together to battle against Little Vulpix, in order to test the results of the past ten days of training.
Little Vulpix had already become proficient with nearly all of its current moves. Terrance decided that in two days, he would let Castform and Beautifly guide it in training the power of ice, specifically, control over Hail weather.
After eating special food for a month, Larvitar could partially control its weight. Of course, this control only worked within the limits of Larvitar's current size and weight. IOnce it evolved and its weight grew even more astonishing, it would still need to continue eating the special Float Stone-based food to comprehensively transform its body.
As for Ralts, in the past few days, it had mainly been following Gallade to learn Teleport. Moreover, after battling Diantha, Terrance had picked up a little trick and secretly taught it to Ralts.
"Battle start!"
At Terrance's order, Little Vulpix and the pair of Ralts and Larvitar locked eyes.
At the same time, Rotom Pokédex began recording the match, and Terrance's other Pokémon gathered to watch as well, intending to see how strong these juniors had become.
As the battle began, Ralts channeled its outstanding psychic power and split into seven Double Team clones. Looking carefully, one could see that each clone was enveloped by a Confusion wave generated by Ralts' main body, which was extremely mysterious.
Little Vulpix's training time far exceeded that of Larvitar and Ralts, and its strength was naturally much greater too. Facing eight Ralts, including the Double Team, and Larvitar, making nine enemies in total, Little Vulpix flicked its tails. Six Ice Shards instantly condensed on its six snow-white tails and swept toward the nine opponents.
There was no doubt. If those six Ice Shards hit perfectly, Ralts and Larvitar would definitely lose the ability to battle.
At the same time as the Ice Shards were unleashed, Vulpix's eyes lit up and it used Extrasensory to control the Ice Shards, allowing for more intricate manipulation of the ice chunks.
Confronted with the six Ice Shards, Larvitar panicked completely. This battle had no commands from Terrance. In fact, before it began, Terrance had already told Larvitar to follow Ralts's commands entirely.
But with Ralts's brief and minimal Telepathy, unless one was deeply connected to it, it was hard to understand Ralts' thoughts. This was what made Larvitar most want to cry.
As the Ice Shards came flying in, even though Vulpix was stronger, the battle wasn't about to end so quickly. Ralts's powerful computation power and absolute rationality, calm mind gave it the clearest judgment of the situation. At the very instant the Ice Shards condensed, the clones were already moving, and Larvitar, though confused, followed along in dodging.
As for Ralts' main body, it had already teleported near Little Vulpix the moment the Ice Shards were fired. At that point, it was too late for Little Vulpix to pull back the Ice Shards under its control. It could only whip up an Iron Tail, sweeping its six tails of steel toward Ralts's main body. But the next moment, Ralts used the move "Ally Switch," swapping places with one of the clones on whom it had earlier left behind a Confusion Marker. By letting the clone take the hit, Ralts itself evaded the Iron Tail.
At that very moment, the six Ice Shards shattered two of the clones. However, the remaining four clones of Ralts seized the opportunity to surround Vulpix.
Even when encircled by the clones, Ice Vulpix showed not the slightest panic, since the clones posed little threat to it. But just then, Larvitar suddenly launched an attack. In that instant, it altered its body, instantly lightening its weight, becoming so agile that it leapt directly into the air and released a Rock Slide from above, crashing it down toward Vulpix.
Whoosh!!
A Blizzard swept toward both the Rock Slide and the descending Larvitar. Normally, this Blizzard would have frozen Larvitar and its Rock Slide move completely. However, Ralts once again used "Ally Switch." In an instant, Larvitar swapped places mid-air with one of the four clones surrounding Vulpix. This particular Ralts clone had already been maneuvered above Vulpix by the Ralts' main body through Confusion, back when Vulpix attacked Larvitar. After the switch, Larvitar naturally appeared directly above Vulpix. At that moment, Larvitar again changed its weight, returning to extreme heavy mode and then used the move Bulldoze, crashing straight down on Vulpix.
The Blizzard shattered the Rock Slide and the clone, but both the Ralts' main body and Larvitar were perfectly fine. The feeling of being toyed with left Vulpix extremely irritated. Facing the Larvitar plunging from above, it whipped its Iron Tail to strike. However, with the augmentation of gravity acceleration and super weight, the power of this Bulldoze move was terrifying, instantly dispersing Vulpix's Iron Tail and knocking Vulpix down.
"Not a bad combination. This Ralts is quite clever. Without my orders, it managed to coordinate with Larvitar like this."
Terrance's eyes lit up. Attaching Confusion to Double Team clones and then using Ally Switch was an idea he had drawn from Diantha. Her method of attaching Confusion to her clones was meant to control and enhance the Round moves each clone used, fusing them together. But when adapted by Terrance, the Confusion-imbued clones became "alternative substitutes," acting as pawns for Ralts' main body. This created a tactical move that can swap the position of the clones and teammates to threaten enemies.
In fact, Ralts and Larvitar's coordination was outstanding. With its ability to switch between light and heavy mode, Larvitar could now adjust its weight to suit a wide variety of moves, maximizing their effects.
This breeding method likely originated from Steven's inspiration from the move Autotomize. Autotomize worked by shedding useless parts of the body to greatly boost speed. Larvitar cannot learn this move as it does not align with the principle behind the move, similar to how Pikachu cannot learn Synthesis. However, based on the effect of the move, Steven developed a breeding method with similar effect, which is the food recipe he provided to Terrance. However, this breeding method is only applicable to Rock-type Pokémon.
Float Stone: a very light stone that reduces a Pokémon's weight when carried. Any Pokémon could use a Float Stone. It was a mineral even more mysterious than evolutionary stones. The food recipe built around Float Stone, when given to a rock-bodied Pokémon like Larvitar, allowed its body structure to change. Over time, the Float Stone's properties subtly integrated into Larvitar, forming an internal organ. With this organ, Larvitar could actively decide whether or not the Float Stone's effects applied, thus controlling its own body weight.
For the Larvitar whose base weight was more than three times that of its peers, entering extreme-light mode reduced its weight to only about half of a normal Larvitar's. This instantly narrowed the gap by several times, which is far more effective than simply carrying a Float Stone. Of course, the resources Terrance had invested were unimaginable. Even just Float Stones themselves cost a huge sum, and the rare minerals needed to assist the Float Stone were also anything but cheap.
In this battle, with Ralts acting as the Trainer and commander, Larvitar successfully broke through Vulpix's Iron Tail using Bulldoze, securing victory.
****Please support on pat*eon for extra chapters; there is date to date subscription enabled on patreon. [There is a 7-day trial version availabe on patreon.]
https://www.pat*eon.com/dmtranslations
You can read ahead upto 65 chapters on my pa*reon.